Gov. Deval L. Patrick is wrong. Hiking the gas tax will only hurt the poor and workers who receive minimum wages. The richer of us can afford it. Surely our legislators who receive mileage coverage won't be hurt and surely not Patrick himself.

Restoring Massachusetts Turnpike tolls is fairer because we have a choice. Pay the tolls or take Route 20. It is quite an interesting drive. Actually, Route 20 will take you all the way to Seattle.

--SARAH ANN WALSH
--Springfield

Wearing a seat belt a no-brainer

This is in response to the front page story in The Republican about Massachusetts' winning the dumbbell sweepstakes, where the state is only 67 percent in compliance with using seat belts while driving.

It's usually Alabama or Louisiana that leads in these polls because of huge, poor, rural, uneducated populations living there, but not this time. We win the dork contest.

I hear that it should be someone's personal choice whether they want to do a swan dive through the windshield. Or the crying about how uncomfortable it is around their beer gut. Well, try drinking a beer through a straw after you fracture your face on your Bose radio. Or the part-time seat belt guy, he's the gambler in the crowd.

I became a believer about 20 or so years ago when I watched a TV news documentary that talked about the many young men and women who left their seat belts off and were in accidents. The primary injury was trauma to the frontal lobe of the brain since you go head first into the windshield without a seat belt to secure you. The damage, even when going 30-40 mph, to your brain is definitive and irrevocable and going faster will probably kill you, so we won't worry about that.

Victims in their teens and 20s never realize their full potential because it's gone forever. I still remember the dazed look and slow responses of young people who can no longer compete in life. That big or little smack to the frontal lobe will put you at the end of the line for good. Why? Because you're not smart enough to snap a buckle. Duh.

--NOEL J. GORMAN
--Amherst

Need for seat belts based in physics

It's sad that Massachusetts is losing millions of dollars in federal highway funds ("State slow to embrace buckling up," The Republican, April 7) because the Legislature is spooked by people who don't understand the basic laws of motion and have no understanding of human behavior.

Mother Nature has ruled that if one object is sitting on top of another and the bottom object is moving, the top object will move, too. But when the bottom object stops, the top object will keep right on going at the same speed. This is one of Newton's Laws of Motion. It means that if you are not buckled up, you keep on moving when the car stops, smashing your head against the windshield or flying out of the car.

As for the driver who blithely insists, "I'm pretty confident with my driving, so I don't bother," my father's instruction to me was, "Just consider everyone else on the road as either blind, drunk or crazy."

So if you are stopped because of traffic, it does not prevent the car in back of you from slamming into you, or it does not help if the car in front stops suddenly, not giving you time enough to stop safely. As for feeling uncomfortable because of stomach padding, the belt should be worn below the abdomen. And when these unbuckled folks do get into an accident and suffer serious injuries, all of us find the cost of insurance and medical treatment is rising.

It's high time the Legislature acted responsibly and passed a primary seat belt law so that drivers without one can be stopped and fined.

--JEAN CALDWELL
--Springfield

President's intellect the change we need

How sad that the right wing in this country has dissolved into nothing more than a fear-mongering group of extremists, who seem intent on destroying not only our country, but our new president's ability to repair the damage done by their very own.

For the first time in more than eight years, we have a president who is able to deal with our friends and our enemies - both real and perceived - intelligently, intellectually, with humility, honesty, openness and, most importantly, strength.

President Barack Obama's trip overseas has given America a new sense of respect, not only respect for the president himself, but for the people of this country. Gone is the ridiculous six-gun, "It's good to be King" mentality of George W. Bush, having been replaced with diplomacy, critical thinking, and engagement. Yet the "party of no," devoid of any ideas, thought, or vision, can find the time to take offense to President Obama referring to the United States as having been arrogant towards Europe. Living in denial as they do, they've apparently forgotten the last eight years, and if they need a reminder of a time when America was arrogant towards Europe, I have two very simple words for them: Freedom Fries.